When The Floods Roll Back
by tigerlily25
Summary: Buffy has always walked in the darkness. But returning to the Council, she feels trapped by the shadows of her past. Post-Chosen, BtVS ensemble.
1. Chapter 1

Post-Chosen fic, gleefully ignoring S8 canon. Warnings for darkness and some pottymouth.

Summary: Buffy has always walked in the dark. But returning to the Council, she feels trapped by the shadows of her past.

* * *

A tower of boxes appears in the doorway, heaving and grunting and muttering words that have no place amongst the subtle elegance of the apartment.

"You're gonna break a nail," Buffy warns with a grin, watching as the pile of boxes quivers and lowers and turns into something Giles-shaped. A sweating, dust-covered Giles. Which would be kind of hot if he wasn't so… _Giles_. He rolls his eyes behind his glasses, but there's no real exasperation in the gesture. His eyes find hers and hold her gaze.

"When you offered to assist me with moving, I was under the impression that you would actually – "

"Assist?" Buffy supplies. "Maybe I just like watching you do the heavy lifting for once."

His glare is so dry it could turn the Nile to dust. They freeze there – Buffy not moving from her position half-sprawled on the bed, Giles breathing heavily. She counts silently in her head.

_One… Two… Three…_

She's barely even made it to four before his eyes crinkle up at the corners. Buffy pushes up with her elbows and bounces a little on the edge of the bare mattress, unable to hide her grin.

"First impressions can be deceiving, y'know."

"Had I not learnt that a long time ago," he replies with a chuckle, "I would have packed up and caught the first flight back to England the minute a teenage girl in a short skirt and white sweater first pushed through the library doors and started nattering about Neiman Marcus and last month's hair."

Buffy just shrugs and takes the stack from him as though it weighs nothing. "What can I say?" she says brightly, "I'm just way too loveable."

"You do grow on a person," he says fondly, turning to exit the room and collect another load. He looks back at her, his eyes sparkling with mirth. "Like mould, or a particularly rare kind of fungus."

"Hey!" she protests to his retreating back, her voice raised over his laughter. "Quit it with the likening me to gross slimy things." The bright lights in the hallway cast a warm golden glow over the ornate wooden panelling and piles of boxes as other members of what they're temporarily calling the New Council begin to make the empty apartments their own.

"Besides," Buffy calls triumphantly as a thought occurs to her. "There are good kinds of mould too. You meant it in the penicillin-y way, right?"

A passing Watcher stops to stare and Buffy fights the urge to stick out her tongue. Co-founders of major international organisations can't afford to stoop to childish behaviour. There are examples to be set and lines to be drawn.

She does it anyway, then looks around the living room with a practiced eye. It's not quite 'Giles' yet, but with a bit of work and a whole lot of books and old-looking furniture, she can totally see him being at home here. And it's not a converted shipping container, a battered school bus, or a crappy motel room off a no-name highway, so they're moving in the right direction. Even if they haven't quite figured out the path yet.

"We did okay, Watcher-Mine," she says into the possibility-laden space.

*****

Giles is packing.

If that's even the right word for what he's doing. There's nothing methodical or organised – or even particularly colour co-ordinated – about what's going in the suitcase, which could _so _come back and bite him in the butt later. If he cared about those kind of things.

Buffy can't see his face from her spot in the shadows just outside his doorway, but from the way he's moving – like he's too cold to feel his limbs – it's probably a pretty safe bet that he's not in a fashion-conscious place right now. His cell phone lays open on the edge of the bed, probably forgotten in the midst of his packing storm.

She wonders where he's jetting off to this time – Nairobi, perhaps, or maybe New Zealand. Word is there are some seriously crazy things going down there in the next couple days, apocalypse-grade badness, which has the Asia-Pacific field office good and flustered. There aren't any Slayers stationed in New Zealand, not since Ngaiire got cornered by –

Not since Ngaiire.

Last she heard, Faith was on her way over there with her team to lend a hand. Knowing Faith, a hand attached to something shiny, pointy and built to inflict maximum damage.

The thought of it makes her grin unexpectedly. Hot chicks with superpowers, indeed. The happy slips from her face just as quickly as it appeared, and – oddly enough – she imagines it puddling somewhere down around her feet. Her toes are suddenly cold inside her stylish-yet-_totally_-unaffordable calfskin boots, like she's been trudging through the snow for hours and it's only just now starting to creep up through the soles of the expensive footwear that someone in the Accounts department will probably make her return later.

Giles is packing, and each sweater or shirt or – pause for a moment of 'eww' - _underwear_ that makes the cut is like a slap to the face. Giles isn't meant to leave, not right now, not like this.

The cell buzzes silently, but he ignores it. He stumbles on the lip of the Persian rug, and Buffy has to fight the urge to reach out and steady him, but somehow he maintains his balance without her help, bending forward as if to restore his equilibrium.

He looks impossibly old with his shoulders all hunched like that, like all the world's a stadium and he's gloveless in the middle of the ring, muscles coiled and waiting for the next crushing blow to rain down. Moving from dresser to bed and back again, armfuls of soft cotton and wool heaped in his arms haphazardly. Her eyes stray to the suitcase stretched over the bed. Half full or half empty, Buffy can't tell which.

She's pretty sure it doesn't matter either way.

The unknown caller gets relegated to voicemail, a single low beep interrupting her train of thought.

She watches him for a long moment, biting her lower lip. She can't remember feeling this uncertain since she was a teenager. Standing in a graveyard, bright clothes saccharine-sweet against the gloomy darkness, shifting her weight impatiently as Merrick tried to tell her this or that. Tried to impart some great wisdom that might one day save her life, and damned himself in doing so.

The skin on the back of her neck prickles uncomfortably and Buffy whirls in a blur of movement and intent, searching the shadows for what turns out to be a whole lot of nothing. Just more and more velvety darkness, and she'll really have to speak to someone about getting those broken bulbs fixed soon.

It's not like the Coalition is hard up for cash or anything. Giles finagled it so that they not only had access to the former Council's sizable assets but some kind of support from the British government as well. Sort of a 'you keep the monsters in the closet and we'll keep channelling taxpayer funds your way' type deal. Buffy's never been one for the financial side of things – other than her two-year foray into the treacherous waters of home account management, which taught her the innate value of careful budgeting… or just delegating such things to the math nerds – so she pretty much stays out of it. She might have to break that vow in the pursuit of decent lighting, though. Some things you just can't skimp on.

It's gloomier than a B-grade horror movie in here, and she can't believe that Giles can see properly in the half-light when he's walking around, glasses or no.

If things were different between them, she'd stride in, shoot him a quick smile and tease him for being a klutz, pretend to add it to the tally of almost-concussions. As it is, Buffy stays in the doorway and waits. For what, she's not exactly sure.

_Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. _She wonders why he doesn't answer the call, but doesn't dare do it for him. _Beep_. Another message joins the first.

Another armful of Giles-things joins the growing pile in the suitcase.

The words are out before she can bite them back, a touch more petulant than she'd like to be.

"Where are you going?"

Giles doesn't stop moving, doesn't look in her direction, but his shoulders redefine the meaning of 'stiff' as he continues to rifle through the dresser drawer. The child inside her wants to stamp her foot, wants to demand that he look at her. If things were different, she might have.

But this is how it is now, so she doesn't stamp, and he doesn't stop, and they hang spinning there like flies in a web, suspended in the heavy silence for endless aching moments. Finally he sighs and splays his right hand out flat on the knotted wooden surface of the dresser, the silvery burn scars catching the light in a way that's heartbreaking and beautiful all at once.

Flies in a web.

"You can't stay here," he says quietly, resignedly. "You're needed elsewhere."

It's only the Slayer reflexes that keep her from rocking back on her heels like she's been shot. He won't even look at her, but his fingertips are white where they're pressed into the grain of the wood. All save for his pinkie, which rests twisted and ever-motionless on the surface. Buffy's heart twists painfully in her chest at the sight of it.

"Don't worry," she snaps bitterly, each word a poisoned dagger aimed to wound. "I'm channelling Faith this week. Get none, get gone."

That – of all things, _that_ - gets his attention. Not in a way where he's actually meeting her eye, but it's kinda hard to tell whether he's trying to or not since she's trying to memorise the pattern in the rug. Rich reds tangle and spill over into buttery gold and nut-brown, so closely woven that you can hardly tell where one colour ends and another begins.

It reminds her of something she hasn't seen for a while, a whispered memory prodding insistently in the back of her mind. Tangled limbs and laughter. It slips through her fingers just as she's sure she's figured it out. Her disappointed sigh echoes in the silence. There's something she was supposed to remember to do today. Something she came here for.

Giles clears his throat. "I'm sorry," he says at last, not just a whisper, barely even a breath. Slayer hearing, though, makes it pretty impossible to keep things at an inaudible level.

"Don't," she says simply. There's way more to say here, but he's right – this is strictly a business visit. To be honest, she wasn't even planning to come down to the residential wing, but somehow she ended up here anyway.

The same can be said for a lot of things, really.

Just not _now_, not when they're pressed for time – saving the world turns out to be a pretty full-time occupation, even with extra hands on deck – and still raw on the inside from the last time they tried to talk about them, almost a year ago now. Later, there will be time for this, but not now, with their alliances in Nairobi breaking down and the Turkish team in the middle of negotiating the end of a demon war. And Sydney – well, there's not a lot to say about Sydney, except that it ended badly for all involved.

If she's learnt nothing else over the past few years, she's learnt that some things are un-saveable.

Giles obviously missed the memo, because he keeps right on going. "I failed you."

"Giles – "

"I should have said it earlier, I suppose. How proud I've been, watching you shoulder the responsibility that comes with leadership. Watching you grow, and help others to grow, yet not losing yourself in the meantime." He shakes his head. "I should have said it earlier."

She steps forward into the light and his eyes skitter over her briefly, then dart away. He never manages to look her in the eye.

"Whoa, easy on the pity party there Watcher-Mine. I thought I was the only one who got the birthday blues," she says ruefully, and then the words register like a slap to the face. "And hey, it's your birthday. Guess it's all kinds of redundant to wish you a happy one. I would've got you a present, but I've pretty much only seen the inside of backwater airports since yesterday morning, and they're not so much with the meaningful gifts. A world of gaudy neck pillows and trashy magazines. And speaking of all things budget-y – are we cutting costs on travel as well as lighting?"

The ghost of a smile plays over Giles' face, and Buffy hopes it's because of the babble. At least she's doing something right today, even if it's 'cheering through word vomit'. It's like the silence they've successfully maintained over the past four months means nothing, because all the things she's wanted to say are churning in her stomach like she's just chugged a bottle of ipecac and is ready to blow the 'might have been' all over the red-gold-brown rug.

But she can't shake the sense that they're running out of time. It claws at her, a wounded animal moving too fast to see or fight. Unseen eyes bore into the back of her neck and her skin crawls with unease. There's still nobody there when she whips around, but the air is unsettled as though someone was _just _there behind her and she was too slow to react.

Down the hall, someone is singing in a high thin voice. No words, just a constant drone of noise. It's familiar – like forehead kisses and night-lights – but try as she might she can't remember the words. They slip from her mind like fine grains of sand through a sieve, almost caught but not quite.

Buffy faces Giles and frowns, because sometime in the maybe ten seconds since she looked at him, he's turned away. "I didn't know there were kids living here," she says to his back. His hair is longer than she's seen it for awhile, feathering over the collar of his shirt. "What's next? Doggy day care?"

"A change is as good as a holiday," he replies flatly, head bent, eyes fixed on something crumpled and hidden in his hand.

A dismissal if ever she heard one.

"Don't tell me," Buffy jokes, her tone falsely bright. "You're going to Vegas to live the showgirl dream. Bright lights, false eyelashes… I've always thought you'd look good in pink. Go Giles with your dancer self."

Giles sighs.

She wants to tell him that sometimes she wishes that things didn't have to change so much, that she could keep blaring pop music during after-school training just because it annoys him, that he could clean the glasses that he no longer wears.

"Giles – "

He cuts her off. "You can't stay here." It only takes four words to crush the newly-sprung hope that this isn't something else that can't be fixed.

She might be able to come up with the right thing to say if that kid would just stop singing. But the noise continues to echo in her head, and she's never been good with the sentimental or inspirational anyway. It just turns into another General Buffy moment. And in the end, he's right. She's needed elsewhere.

"Happy Birthday, Rupert," she says quietly to his ramrod-stiff back, and turns away into the velvety half-light.

* * *

"I swear to whoever is listening, if I have to listen to Andrew bitch about how undervalued and unappreciated he is for one more minute, I won't be responsible for where my sword ends up," Xander grouses, flopping down onto the sofa between Buffy and Willow with a giant bowl of popcorn in hand.

They exchange amused glances behind his head.

He looks between them for a second and then sighs. "Okay, so by 'my sword', I probably mean 'one of the new Slayer's swords'. Unless, y'know, a certain Buffy-shaped-friend feels like getting a little field practice in amongst all the bureaucratic overlording she's been doing these days…"

Buffy has to bite the inside of her cheek to hide the smirk. "Giles still hasn't revoked that ban on you having pointy shiny things, huh?"

Xander grumbles under his breath. "A guy tries to protect himself from invaders into his guy-space at night and instead of a tickertape parade for his heroic acts, he gets banned from the armoury."

"Maybe Watkins is worried you'll try to make off with the rocket launcher," Willow cuts in, and both women lose the battle to not laugh as Xander's face lights up like a kid on Christmas morning.

"We have a rocket launcher? Why wasn't I – "

Willow chokes on her giggles. "Just a guess, but it might have had something to do with the whole thing where you broke into a United States Army base and, um, stole one?"

Xander glares at her. "Oh, sure, make fun of Key Guy."

"I'm sure that Dawn and Rona were suitable cowed by your sword-wielding skills," Buffy reassures him, patting him on the shoulder. "I know Dawn said later that she nearly peed in her pants."

She doesn't bother to mention that the almost-pee was a product of laughter rather than fear. No sense in kicking a guy while he's down.

He looks oddly satisfied by that, if a little suspicious. "Serves them right for staging a sneak pillow attack in the middle of the night. And where Dawn learnt to pick locks, I really don't know, but if I had to point fingers, I'd be waggling mine in the direction of a certain bleach-blonde outlaw type."

He shoots a quick sideways glance at Buffy, as if testing the waters. She rolls her eyes at him even as her chest tightens just a little at the not-really-mention of Spike.

They're still not sure what went down in Los Angeles a few months back, but nobody's seen or heard from anyone who was there, human or vampire. Knowing Spike, he's probably biding his time, waiting for the most inconvenient moment to make a grand sweeping entrance.

The alternative is still too painful to consider, and Buffy's nothing if not an expert at deflecting her friends' concern. So she just rolls her eyes at Xander and digs her hand into the bowl of popcorn, and if there's a little fist-clenching going on around the fluffy kernels, it's out of sight where it should be.

And if she knows Xander's not fooled by the way his eye fixes on hers and holds, it's not the time to be showing it. "So what are we watching tonight?" she asks cheerily instead, telegraphing her need to not talk about those that aren't here. There's a stack of DVD's on the coffee table, and the couch is just the right blend of firm and squashy, and she's pretty sure Willow's brought sweet treats for later.

There's no room for melancholy on movie night. It's right up there with rules number one through seventeen in the unofficial Slayer Handbook, Scooby Edition. Which contains warnings like 'Never trust a substitute teacher', 'Tread softly and always carry a spare stake', and 'If the computer talks back to you, destroy first and ask questions later.'

Their weekly meetings have become something of a tradition, so much so that the Coalition higher-ups know not to send Willow out to oversee the forming of the Magic Departments in their various posts around the world, or to keep Buffy in meetings or in the field on Thursdays. Xander calls it 'Scooby Time'. Willow calls it 'Pop Culture Appreciation (With Yummy Snacks)'.

Buffy calls it therapy.

Even if it's the wrong sort of sofa and there's no ticking clock or scribbling of notes. Because when she's being honest with herself, which is scarily often these days, movie nights with Xander and Willow do more to smooth over her increasingly frayed nerves than any of the Coalition-employed counsellors or other degree-having helpful people could hope to achieve.

They've all got scars – some more visible than others, which is why she always sits on Xander's right side – and they've all got things that keep them awake at night, but that's kinda the point. For a few hours on Thursdays, they can pretend they're back in high school, hanging out in the living room of the Summers' house, mostly whole and as yet scar-free. It makes the other times more bearable somehow, and it makes Buffy appreciate why people turn to religion and routine to find solace.

There's as much comfort in lighting candles and speaking words to unseen deities as there is in sugar highs and B-grade comedies. Or so she figures, anyway.

"On the rotation list tonight, my bestest buds with girl parts; we have a romantic comedy starring one or more members of the Friends cast, where the female lead goes through a series of dating trials before realising that her true love is in fact her best friend – " He waggles his eyebrows at both women in turn and they groan in tandem as he continues.

"– or if that doesn't float your boat, there's something about a whole lot of very expensive jewellery and Audrey Hepburn, or finally – and I'd like to put in a pre-emptive vote for this one since I was so unfairly overruled in last week's Bond vs Zach Braff debacle – the comedic pro-animal-rights stylings of a man so elastic-faced he must have some G'Shrak demon in him, Mister Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura."

"Good job, Xander!" Willow offers with a proud smile, and he grins back at her.

"Well, I put a lot of thought into movie selection. It's a whole process."

Willow snorts. "No, I meant good job working 'debacle' into a sentence. That's really stepping it up."

Xander looks at Buffy. "Oh great and mighty leader, permission to hit a certain Wiccan redhead with a neither-pointy-nor-shiny cushion?"

Buffy pretends to mull it over. "Granted. But if Giles hears about this, he might ban you from the soft furnishings section of the Housekeeping Department."

"That's a chance I'm willing to take," Xander replies with a shrug, and before he's even finished the sentence the bowl of popcorn goes flying through the air and Willow shrinks away, squealing in mock-fear.

Buffy allows herself a moment of wistfulness – because as much as they try to pretend, they're not the same teenagers they once were – before grabbing something soft and plump and joining in the fight, her laughter tangling amongst theirs like her limbs.

Sometimes healing happens in ways you least expect it to.

****

He's sitting on the couch when Buffy pushes through the door quietly, his eyes fixed on the flickering soundless menu screen of the DVD. It runs through a montage of scenes from the movie itself, pauses, then repeats the process in a never-ending visual loop. A long-forgotten bowl of popcorn sits on the handmade coffee table, filled with enough fluffy kernels for three. The calendar on the opposite wall proclaims the date to the silent room in big black block letters.

It's Thursday.

He sits squarely in the centre, arms stretched over the over-plumped cushions like there's a soft body on either side of him and he's shielding them from everything outside their little bubble of togetherness.

Xander is alone.

It strikes her immediately that he's wearing his eye patch, and she wonders if he expected company, or whether he just never takes it off. She definitely can't remember ever seeing him without it – it's as much a part of his armour now as the goofy smile and too-loud shirts.

"Hey," she offers quietly, like they've had four months of normal Thursdays between now and then.

Xander nearly jumps out of his skin, staring at her as if he can't believe his eyes. Well, eye. She wonders how the world looks without depth perception, and thinks she should be more disturbed at her macabre curiosity. It's not something she could ever ask him, after all, and even less something she'd want to find out for herself.

"Hey," he says in response, one syllable that gives away nothing, every muscle in his body tensed as if he's readying himself to fight or flee.

Somewhere along the way, the goofy boy turned into a man whose smile doesn't reach his eyes. He's learnt the art of being inscrutable, and yet she can see from the twitch at the corner of his mouth, the way his fingers grip and release the back of the couch, that it's a work in progress. That it's a nonlinear progression that he didn't ask for.

Buffy knows a little something about that.

."Whatcha watching?" she asks, nodding at the television as though the outcome of whatever's happening here between them is wholly dependent on the made-up lines that someone else says. Which, in a way, it is, though something about the set of Xander's jaw tells her he's not in the mood to follow the script.

His eyes never leave hers. "You tell me."

Buffy can feel her smile stretch so tight across her teeth that her lip threatens to split. It's not a nice feeling, but it distracts her from the odd twisting in the pit of her stomach. "It's been a long time," she starts, and Xander's face hardens.

"Whose fault was that?" he asks, pushing up from his position on the couch slightly awkwardly, but not making any attempt to move closer to her. As if she's some kind of contagious disease.

As if he's afraid.

Buffy can't look at him. "Mine." The carpet is well-worn in a distinct path under her feet, as though someone spends a lot of time pacing the floor here. There's a tiny spot on the toe of her right boot that looks like blood. She wonders whose it is, and for the life of her she can't remember what she was doing to get it. "But better late than never, right?"

"Maybe," he answers, and drags his hand up over his face and through his hair, making it stick up crazily. He looks wild for a moment before his eyes soften. "I could point fingers, Buff, but it won't make either of us feel better. Won't change anything, either."

"I needed to get away," she says, suddenly needing to explain why. "After what happened in Cleveland, and the blame-fest that came afterwards, and… and Dawn; I just needed… I needed to not be Buffy for a little while. I never really got that before, not even after the collapse of Sunnydale."

Xander moves to interrupt and she steps closer to him, pretends not to wince when he rocks back on his heels. "I should have listened to you guys when you told me to take time off. That I needed to talk to someone. All that stuff. But by the time I got why you were so persistent, it was a one-way road to Total Buffy Meltdown Town."

"I'm not saying it was the best choice ever," he says without malice, "But I get it." He frowns. "And just so you know, I'm pretty sure your one-way street had at least two lanes, maybe three. Maybe more. You weren't the only one who couldn't see beyond the next bend."

"I don't know how we got here," Buffy says quietly. She wants to sit, but sitting means moving past the mountain that is Xander, and when did he get so solid-looking, because it's more than a little –

No. Bad Buffy.

"If we knew how we got here," Xander offers, and if he's noticed her appraisal of his Xander-ness he doesn't show it. "Maybe we wouldn't be here."

"Look at you, waxing all philosophical," she says, a grin creeping across her face before she can help it.

"I did try offering my mind to the Communications and Prophecies Department," Xander replies, his lip twitching, "but they just wanted me for my body. Specifically, Maggie in Communications has a crazy pirate fetish, and I was _so_ not touching that with a ten-foot butter-dipped pole." He rolls his eyes. "Their loss. I don't have to embrace my inner Confucius to earn candy and beer money, and I get to save all the best gems for my buds."

"You allowed in the armoury yet?" Tentative in a way that she's never had to be around him, but it's new ground they're forging and she doesn't want to miss a step.

He's definitely fighting the urge to laugh now. "It took a lot of convincing, but I think Giles saw the validity of my argument in the end."

"Finally used that Cher tape, huh?"

"G-Man didn't want his buddies to know what he gets up to in his spare time," Xander snorts. "Still waiting for him to properly explain the 'why' of that one, since you wouldn't tell me where you got it. And sometimes when I'm asleep, the image of Giles in a shiny spangled dress grinds all up in my dreams."

Buffy winces at the thought. "Might need to borrow your pole." The minute it's out she knows where it's going to go. He might be getting better at inscrutable, but one double entendre and it's pretty much open season.

She'd be lying if she claimed to be unhappy about that.

The look he gives her is best described as a full on dirty man leer. She almost expects a mirror ball to drop and bow chicka wow music to start playing. To her surprise and consternation, he takes one look at her obviously-horrified face and breaks into genuine laughter, the kind that you can't help but be swept up in.

"I missed this," he says when he's able to breathe normally again.

"I missed you," Buffy replies in a voice that's more steady than she expected it to be. A dull ache has started up just below her ribs. His eyes shine.

There's something she wants to ask him. Well, if she's being honest with herself – which she rarely is these days – she doesn't want to ask, but she _has _to. And it has to be right now, because time's running out.

Buffy draws in air so fast it burns all the way down, and forces the words out through her too-tight throat, driving the question out into the space between them in a rush of hurried syllables forced out by hot air.

"Do you ever see her?"

She can see the emotions play across a face that's suddenly not so different to the boy she used to know once upon a time, except right now he's visibly fighting the urge to deflect her question with a red cape of awkward humour. He doesn't ask her to clarify, doesn't ask why, and she's grateful, because she's not sure she knows the answer herself.

"Sometimes I'd like to think I do," Xander says quietly, looking away. "I talk to her sometimes, and it's almost like she's really there. Maybe I'm really talking to her. Maybe I'm not. Either way, it's not going to confirm my status as a guy who's with the having of his sanity."

"I think we do what we have to, to find comfort," Buffy says slowly.

"Is that what this is?"

She doesn't know _what_ this is. It's movie night, and that used to be enough to get them all through, until the day when it stopped being enough and started just being another illusion in a long trail of lies. It started with a frayed edge in the cloth, and became a tear without them even really noticing.

Sometimes you just can't stitch fast enough.

"She'd be proud of you," she says simply.

"She'd be proud of _us_," he replies, but his eyes are shadowed with something unreadable. "We made it this far, and we're mostly intact. Nobody's made a fortune exploiting anyone else, but I think she'd be proud anyway."

The phone rings in the bedroom, breaking the silence that Buffy doesn't quite know how to break. Xander's face creases with confusion.

"Who the – wait right here," he says, and beneath the casual tone she hears the hint of apprehension, a learnt behaviour. It's almost midnight, and just like Pavlov's dogs salivate when they smell the meat powder, the ringing of a phone in the wee hours invokes threatening tears.

Choked throats and fears that somewhere, someone they love is lying dead.

Her heart stutters in her chest and the world blurs.

His fingers trail across the doorframe as though he's searching for an anchor. Forced brightness in his tone for an instant before his breath catches midway through his own name. As though he's forgotten it.

There's another drop of blood near the hem of her pants, half-hidden by the folds of the fabric. She can't tear her eyes away from it.

Xander's been in the bedroom with the door closed for what could be eternity or could be mere seconds – time seems to stretch and warp like saltwater taffy lately. The clock on the wall ticks evenly like a heartbeat, and in the silence Buffy realises that it's past midnight and no longer Thursday.

Movie night is over.

Movie night is over, and there's someone sobbing in the bedroom, and no matter how much she wants to comfort him she can't bring herself to push through the door and ask who it is. The shrill ring of the phone continues on and off, until it's one constant drone of sound echoing around in her head. Can't think. Can't breathe. Can't move.

So this is the sound someone's world makes when it crumples around them.

* * *

_As always, comments and/or concrit welcomed and appreciated. :)_


	2. Chapter 2

Thanks to those who have favourited/reviewed so far. It really makes my day. :)

One more part to go after this one.

* * *

"Angie, you're dropping your left shoulder again," Buffy calls above the dull thud-smack-scrape of bare fists on protective pads.

She dodges a stray shuriken amid horrified gasps from the assembled Slayers and trainers, but doesn't break stride as she moves through the blur of limbs and ponytails. Angie acknowledges her advice with a nod and a grunt, glitter-painted fingernails flashing in the harsh light of the training area as she moves in for another lethal strike, shoulders squared.

Buffy grins and surveys the room with a critical eye.

"Demons don't hold back," Buffy says loudly, bluntly. "You don't get padding in a real fight unless you get jumped during a training session. Which, given all the wards and whatnot around this place, is about as likely as the Queen of England popping down to the 7-11 for a packet of Marlboros and a Big Gulp. But hey, you never know."

She pauses amid the snorts of laughter, snatching a stray staff from the mat and whirling to block Cho's surprise attack with a solid thunk of wood on wood. They thrust and parry for a brief moment, the dark-haired girl looking both fiercely focused and a little bit awed to be sparring with the Original Slayer.

Buffy really hates that name – it makes her think of hot desert sun and war paint – but the Slayers-in-Training insist on calling her that when they think she's not in earshot.

Cho's staff snaps in two under the force of Buffy's return blows, leaving her gasping and clutching two evilly-pointed pieces of wood. She looks from her left hand to Buffy's face and back again and bites her lip nervously. A heartbeat later she's flat on her back on the mat, long black braid pinned under Buffy's elbow like the rest of her is trapped under Buffy's carefully-distributed weight.

The nearby Slayers stop dead and stare.

"Demons don't hold back," Buffy repeats in the near-silence, pointedly but not unkindly. "You can't either." She eases off a little, drawing her lips back as if she's about to sink her teeth into the fourteen-year-old's neck, and Cho squeaks in terror. "Trust your instincts," she says quietly.

The next thing Buffy knows, the world is spinning as Cho uses her legs to push up from the mat and flip them over, a third stake appearing from inside the sleeve of her loose cotton jacket. The point presses right above Buffy's heart, not hard enough to hurt, just enough so that she feels the pressure of it. How easily it could tunnel into fragile flesh, a hot knife into butter.

Cho's dark liquid eyes lock onto hers and hold, dancing with triumph.

"We should totally film this shit," an amused voice intrudes from somewhere above and to her left. "Put it on the internet and wham, there's a whole legion of horny old bastards squirming in their seats like a virgin in the back rooms of a strip joint. Charge 'em $29.95 a month and we'd be riding pretty on the greenback wave of other people's kinks."

"Faith," Buffy warns, though she can't help but grin. Faith offers Cho a hand and Buffy springs to her feet, free of the force that's left a fast-fading impression in the mat. The other Senior Slayer waves casually at the girls watching them, an unspoken signal to get back to work. Activity resumes around them as Buffy raises an eyebrow at her sister Slayer. Faith manages to look abashed for all of three seconds before a smirk twists her face.

"Yeah, I know. We could totally pull in double that. Naked Slayer Wrestling. Be the less gross alternative to Two Girls One Cup." She glances at Cho. "Google is _not_ your friend, Slaygal."

"Sword work, Cho," Buffy says hastily, and the young girl nods quickly, eyeing Faith like she's a snake about to strike. Buffy winks at her. "Nice job on the sneak attack. I'll let your dorm captain know that you've got unlimited ice-cream and TV privileges for a week."

The petite slayer grins widely and scurries off, braid flipping from side to side in her excitement. Buffy watches her go, her stomach twisting uneasily.

"They're so young," she says quietly, Faith at her side as they move out of the training zone and stand at the edge of the custom-rigged floor.

"You're not wrong," Faith replies. She shrugs. "But think of it this way, B. All these girls, any one of 'em could've been the only girl in the world. 'Least this way we're giving them what they need to keep fighting, and do it together."

Neither of them mention the fact that they did this in the first place. They created this world, where there isn't just one girl but thousands. Some of them, they haven't even found yet. Xander and Willow and their teams are working on it, but it's slow going, especially in the remote areas.

"Xander get back yet?"

Buffy shakes her head. "Last I heard, he was in Somalia tracking down the last few on the list that Willow put together." She rubs the back of her neck briefly, easing the muscles that aren't so used to being slammed to the ground now that she spends a lot of her time in meetings and on the road. "He'll be back in a couple days."

Faith nods. "Robin's somewhere in Australia," she offers briefly, her face unreadable. "Shooting the shit, maybe shooting some roos. Who knows."

Buffy studies her carefully. Faith's not the type to cave at the offer of ice-cream and girl talk. "You're not talking to each other much these days, huh?"

"Man's got his Y-fronts in a knot," Faith says, not looking at Buffy. "Says he needs to find his fire again. Guess I'm not two sticks he can rub together." She shrugs again, but it doesn't look so easy this time. "No big. Plenty here to keep me occupied. Training and patrolling and stuff."

There's a pause.

"Speaking of," Faith says, looking at Buffy with a glint in her eye. "Haven't seen you in the field much lately. Up for a spot of violence tonight? You and me, no baby slayers, no rules. Hard and fast and dirty, just the way I like it." Her wink practically drips with the double-entendre, and Buffy can't help but laugh. Faith's right – the demands of building the Coalition haven't left her a lot of time to cut loose these days, and she's a little restless with the need to blow off some steam.

"You're on," she says decisively, mentally clearing her calendar. If Faith were the bouncing type, she'd be five feet in the air right about now. Buffy returns the wink, though not at quite the same strength. She's out of practice, and Faith's set the standards of lewd pretty high. "But only if you let me be on top."

"B's come over all dirty," Faith replies appreciatively, plucking a dagger from a nearby board and twirling in her fingers. "Careful what you wish for. I might have to knock you down a peg or two, Miss Cowgirl."

"You might _try_."

Faith slings an arm around her shoulders, an odd gesture from the once-prickly girl who stiffened at the mere suggestion of physical contact that didn't involve sweat and naked flesh.

"You and me against the underworld, B."

*****

Buffy slips into the back of the gym, keeping to the shadows. There's a spot in the back left-hand corner where nothing is stored and nobody ever goes – a perfect place for someone to watch the activity and remain unseen. Until they want to be seen, that is, and Buffy's not entirely sure that she does. Not yet, at least. Xander's sobs still ring in her ears, mixing with the damned tune she can't get out of her head.

If she could remember the words, maybe it would stop nagging at her.

A crowd of forty-odd Slayers of varying ages, experience and nationalities are gathered on the floor, stretching their muscles, cooling down from the evening session. They chatter amongst themselves quietly, accents and inflections mixing and mingling so that the words themselves are indistinguishable. A constant hum of controlled noise with no meaning.

The last session of the day has always been restricted to slayers only – no support staff or Watchers to crowd the floor or observe from the sidelines.

The restriction was Faith's idea, a chance for the Chosen to cut loose, to work out their final reserves of energy before retiring to the dorms for the night. Once they're done here, it's all pyjamas and movies and gossip. Maybe controlled amounts of sugar, because they've learnt the hard way that a dozen young slayers plus pints of ice-cream equals a total madhouse of super strong, bouncing teenage energy. Many a dorm captain has come to Buffy or Faith in the middle of the night desperate for them to wrangle the girls back into line. They always get the same answer.

_Let them have their fun while they can_.

If they have to sacrifice a few supervisors to other, less strenuous jobs, so be it.

There are plenty of prices to pay for being one of the Chosen, but giving up the ability to forget about their destiny and just be teenagers for a while will never be one of them. Not as long as the Sunnydale survivors are in charge.

Faith unfurls herself from the centre of the group, standing in one fluid motion. Her hair is longer than Buffy has ever seen it, a wild unrestrained mass that hangs heavy down her back. It makes her look younger somehow, though her eyes are shadowed and dark.

"Thought I'd stick around for tonight's funtimes before I fly out to the Land of the Long White… something. Sheep, maybe." She wrinkles her nose and the girls around her laugh. "Anyway. Guess it's time to tally up."

A ripple of excitement runs through the room as sweat-slicked bodies curl and heads pop up from the mass like meerkats, until all the girls are sitting expectantly. Some of them are huddled together casually, in the way that only teenagers can pull off before it becomes a little creepy to be that close to another friend without having some kind of label slapped on you. Young, strong limbs tangle together haphazardly as if they're drawing in each other's strength to keep them going.

The shadows wrap around Buffy silkily as she stands alone in her corner, half-wishing for contact, for someone else's strength.

They changed the world so that no slayer should feel alone, and yet she's never been more lonely in her life.

Faith's eyes stray away from the group, scanning the shadows carefully. Buffy doesn't dare breathe, doesn't even look in case she accidentally catches Faiths' eye. It's not until she feels the prickling subside that she relaxes. By the time she's calm enough to look back at the figures on the mat, Faith's in the middle of some kind of rundown of who 'killed' what.

"Cho: six vamps and a Boretz demon. Total score of fourteen points, with an extra two for a perfect mid-air back tuck. So, sixteen."

The little Korean girl has cut her hair since Buffy saw her last, and gained a few extra inches, which validates the theory that every Slayer in the world is destined to be taller than her. The pixie cut frames her face, giving her a deceptively innocent look, but the expression on her face is bordering on cocky.

That's a new thing, just like the kill count, but it's been months since she was last involved in anything training-related, and she shouldn't be surprised that things have changed.

What does surprise her is how horrible it feels. She was done, she walked away, she made the choice to cut this out of her life, and yet it's like a cancer – you think you've gotten it all, but a tiny cell remains lurking deep in your blood or bones or muscles. Before you know it you're back where you started, only this time the drugs don't work the same way.

"Caitlin: four vampires, a Fyarl, and something with wicked slimy tentacles, courtesy of Anna's warped imagination."

A lanky blonde girl grins triumphantly at the others around her through a nasty-looking bruise at the corner of her mouth. Faith frowns down at the clipboard in front of her.

"Total score, twenty-one points." Cheers erupt, quickly fading to a confused hum when Faith holds up a hand. "'Cept we gotta take off five for…"

What exactly led to the deduction, Buffy doesn't hear. The protests start as a whisper and build to a dull roar as the blonde lets fly with a stream of colourful curses in a distinctly Australian accent. Buffy can't quite make out her words, but the meaning is clear.

"There a problem, Cait?" Faith asks evenly.

"I didn't ask for her help," Caitlin half-shouts, her face tight with frustration. She points across the floor at one of the other girls as she spits out the words."She just went and muscled in on my kill when I was totally faking being up shit creek without a stake. That's not fair! If Buffy was in charge – "

Faith pins the Australian slayer with a look that could ice over the Sahara. "She's not," she says in a deadly calm voice, and despite the hurt that stabs through Buffy's midsection at the finality of the statement, she can't help being just a little bit impressed by Faith's newfound cool. The other Senior Slayer radiates control.

She's not selfish enough to claim any real credit for that, but the thought that her leaving did _someone_ some good is a nice change from the norm.

There's a flash of ash-blonde hair in the opposite corner, and Buffy wonders if she's not the only one hiding in the shadows. It's gone before she can focus properly, but it niggles at her mind with sharp spears of unease.

Caitlin is still trying to plead her case, but Faith's clearly uninterested.

"B's not here, and she ain't coming back, so looks like you're stuck with me. So the way I see it, you got a choice. Suck it up and take what you got, or bitch on your own time. I got places to be and carnage to stop, so right now? You're wasting mine, maybe costing someone their life." The room's so quiet Buffy expects to see a tumbleweed roll casually across the floor.

Faith waits a beat for the message to sink in. "If that's cool with you, go ahead and whine about points in a stupid game."

Caitlin closes her mouth with an audible snap.

If life were Extreme Makeover, this would be the perfect time for Buffy to do her 'Grand Reveal'.

Except it's really not, and her feet are frozen in place against the whirling hum in her head. Enough damage has been done here. She's seen enough, but she can't even move to slip out the door. Her ribs resume their smacked-by-a-freight-train ache and her chest seems hollow and weak against the pain, and that damned song keeps repeating like a record stuck between grooves.

"Go clean up," Faith says finally, shifting on the spot in a way that might be anger or might be frustration. It registers in a rush of comprehension that what Faith is feeling right now is adrift in a sea of self-doubt, grasping with slippery fingers for the lifeboat of control. Buffy should know, she's been down that road before.

The girls rise silently as one and gather sweatshirts and shoes. A few of the older slayers – the ones Buffy recognises, though their names don't spring to mind as easily as they should – cast apprehensive looks over their shoulders as they move toward the double doors, arms full of soft fleece and faces wreathed in confusion.

Faith stands alone in the centre of the floor, spotlighted by the converging lights around the room. She deflates just a little as the last straggler pushes through the doors, rakes her hands through her hair like she's trying to lift the weight of it from her shoulders.

"Guess it's me and me against the underworld tonight, then."

Buffy closes her eyes for a brief moment and when she opens them Faith is heading for the door, her phone to her ear. "You're doing okay, Faith," she offers quietly before she can stop herself. Faith stops in her tracks, looks into the darkness that surrounds her, then smiles a little sadly and flips the light switch. Buffy's slayer senses are rendered useless against the heavy cover of darkness that falls around her. All except one.

"Giles?" Faith says heavily as the doors swing closed behind her in a hiss of hydraulics, "We need to talk."

* * *

Dawn's slamming things around in the kitchen when Buffy enters their apartment. There's a horrible smell in the air, and her first thought is that a mouse must have dipped its feet in mustard and flour and sauntered across the breakfast bar. And that's only the beginning of the mess.

"Buffy!" Dawn squeals, rubbing at a smear on her cheek. She frowns down at her fingers, licks her hand, and grins. "Just in time for dinner!" When Buffy dares to open her eyes post-grimace, Dawn's got a plate in each hand and a Cheshire Cat grin.

There's a pile of vegetables in something red and sauce-like, a mess of noodles _and_ rice, possibly cashew nuts, and what she could swear is a pizza base made of cookie dough. Buffy almost doesn't want to ask.

"If Dominos, Thai Kitchen and Baskin Robbins shared the same back-alley dumpster, this is what it would look like on a Saturday night after close of business," she muses, and Dawn sighs.

"Adults have no imagination."

Having spent the last three days arguing with the Financial Board over why exactly they need to allocate part of the budget to slayer entertainment, Buffy's inclined to agree.

"Speaking of adulthood," Dawn hedges, shifting her weight and almost sending plates toppling, "I was thinking that for my birthday we could – "

"You want to go out and get your drink on, don't you."

Dawn gives her the same faux-innocent grin that she used to when caught with one hand in the cookie jar. "Well – "

"Exhibit A of why I tried to convince Giles to set up headquarters in a place where the legal drinking age was _not_ eighteen," Buffy says with a sigh. "It always ends in tears. And did I tell you about the time when I drank a whole lot of beer and turned into a cave-wench?"

"Only, like, four gazillion times," Dawn says through an eye-roll so deep Buffy wants to ask what the inside of her brain looks like. Which, eww. "And hello, soon to be _not_ barely legal here."

"Which cuts you out of a good chunk of the porn industry, so yay for that."

Her sister raises an eyebrow. "Is that why you won't let me get a webcam?"

"No comment. And if you don't put those plates down somewhere, we might be looking at some kind of nuclear kitchen disaster."

Again with the rolling of eyes. "Says the girl who can barely make toast without slaying the toaster." It's a fair point, though a little insulting. It was only that one time, after all. "Anyway. I thought we could go – "

"Do you think they have a Chuck E. Cheese on this side of the world?"

She's only half joking. The thought of her little sister roaming the streets like a… blind drunk, half-naked streetwalker... is a little too much to handle at this point. Arcade games, knee-length skirts and burgers sound like a pretty good option.

Maybe a kaftan.

"Get outta here," Dawn says through a fit of giggles, whacking Buffy with a spatula playfully. "Seriously, if they hadn't made me from you, I'd totally disown you. Nobody related to me should be that uncool." She bites her lip. "So, um…"

"No strippers," Buffy cuts in immediately. "I draw the line at being gyrated on, and I've still got scars from when Andrew tried his hand at the mighty pole to impress some random clerk."

"Buffy!" Dawn almost squeals, shuddering at the thought. "Shut up already!"

Buffy shuts up.

"No strippers. No clubs. No beer, even, although I'm pretty sure I'd look awesome in a loincloth." Dawn pulls a large cream envelope from behind a stack of utensils and extends it tentatively like she's expecting it to explode. "I was thinking we could take a road trip instead."

Buffy eyes it with about the same amount of trepidation before the crest in the corner registers through the maybe-bomb haze. She stares at the insignia, her heart pounding.

Dawn clears her throat and Buffy blinks up at her.

"Can I speak yet?"

Her sister gives a tiny nod, her face apprehensive.

Given permission to speak, Buffy loses the ability to form words. "I – you – that – "

"I don't have to go," Dawn says quickly. "I mean, I know it's pricey, not to mention way over on the other side of the world, but they're gonna give me a scholarship or something and – " The rest of her words are muffled on account of Buffy's hand being over her mouth.

"Shut up," she parrots in a good imitation of Dawn's earlier tone, removing her hand. "Are you joking? Of course you can go. I mean, I'll miss you like crazy, except when it's your night to cook and on Tuesdays, but... Yale? You got into Yale?"

Dawn flips her hair and pastes on a bright clueless smile. "What, like it's hard?"

Buffy grins at the reference, then groans. "Please tell me you didn't make a bikini movie to get in."

"Nah," Dawn says casually. "I mean, I thought about it, but Andrew stole my blue spangled suit for some kind of slingshot demonstration, and it didn't fit the same after that. So I had to do it the normal way – bribery, begging, a spot of violence. Or, y'know, writing a killer essay."

"You're going to Yale," Buffy breathes out slowly, testing the way the words feel on her tongue.

The smile that spreads across her sister's face is a thing of beauty.

*****

Dawn's never looked more beautiful, straight-backed and fiery and proud.

And also, volcanically angry.

"It's not forever," Buffy says quickly. "I just need… I need to get away from here. From everything. I can't breathe anymore, and I need to learn how again. Otherwise I'm no use to anyone."

She's willing Dawn to understand, sending her desperation across the crackling space between them. Giles is still unconscious, and the doctors say there will be permanent damage, and it's all her fault for not being fast enough, or smart enough, or good enough. It's all her fault.

"If you leave now," Dawn says in an icy voice, "Don't even think about coming back. We don't want you here, and clearly you can't wait to be elsewhere, so go already." Her eyes flash fiercely, deflecting the hurt and pain with a red cloak of rage.

"Dawnie, I – "

"Don't call me that! I'm not a baby any more. Technically, I never was. And you said you'd show me the world, and what – now you think you can just walk out because I've seen a few little bits of it? Enough to get by on my own? Fuck you, Buffy."

The profanity is almost more startling than the vehemence behind the words. It's as out of place in the warm room as an iceberg in the middle of the desert. And Buffy knows she's been drifting lately, knows she hasn't been around as much as she should, but the girl who used to whine about howler monkey sisters and people eating all the peanut butter is in no way related to the woman standing before her.

"Dawn – "

"Get out!" Dawn spits, the tail end of the word rising in something close to a shriek. "Get out, and don't come back. I never want to see you again."

The fight leaks out of her like someone's pulled a plug. Buffy goes, spiralling down the drain with the whirlpool of momentum she's created but doesn't quite know how to reverse.

*****

Voices echo down the empty hallway, bouncing off the walls adorned with what Giles calls 'fine art'.

"But if you consider the etymological origin of the word," Dawn argues, "the whole focus of the paragraph shifts from the mundane to the mystical." Heels clack on stone floor amidst the heavy thump of soft-soled shoes. Buffy doesn't move from her position, half-hidden behind an ornate 19th century vase that's a good head taller than her, wooden stand and all.

Everything in the world is destined to be taller than her, even stupid priceless art.

One of her companions is belabouring his point, and Dawn shoots down his argument as easily as Buffy could shoot a demon with a crossbow, but instead of the complicated discussion, what she hears is _I never want to see you again_.

The footsteps draw closer, and Buffy catches a glimpse of her sister for the first time in what seems like forever.

Dawn's cut her hair short. It curls around her determined face gently, swaying with the weight of her conviction. Surrounded by a small army of Watchers, classification Stuffius Britishus, she holds court, her chin raised high like a queen.

Pride is an emotion Buffy hasn't felt in far too long. It makes her head spin.

The group stop a few feet away, too wrapped up in their argument to notice the carefully-concealed intruder. She'll have to talk to Giles about their lack of observation skills. After all, the inner sanctum of the Coalition is well-guarded, but not entirely impenetrable. They've learnt that the hard way, but it seems some lessons take longer to sink in.

"You should have read my thesis on the linguistic differences between ancient languages," Dawn is telling one particularly stubborn-looking Watcher. "I mean, it's not so much about the demon languages – especially the Asia-Pacific dialects, which are a law of grunts and snarls unto themselves – but the theory still holds true."

"Young lady," the man starts, puffing up noticeably at the perceived affront to his intelligence.

"Technically, I'm way older than you," Dawn says coldly, her arms crossed over what looks suspiciously like a tailored jacket from the tweed family. Paired with a frilled cream-coloured shirt, snug denim and belted tight around her waist, the outfit is effortlessly stylish in the sort of business-y way that Buffy could never quite pull off.

It might be a trick of the light, but the air around her sister glows with just a touch of green.

Buffy wonders when exactly Dawn started channelling her inner Elphaba, then decides it doesn't matter. Also, if the regal tilt to her posture and her dry tone is anything to be considered, her sweet little sister is kind of a bitch. The Watcher she's currently tearing strips off certainly seems wary, and the other four are pointedly examining the walls as if they've learnt the hard way not to engage.

Buffy's ears ring insistently with ghosts of angry words from the past, warnings to keep her promise and remain unseen, even if she desperately wants to gather Dawn in her arms and squeeze her until she thaws.

_We don't want you here._

One of the Watchers steps back to avoid the debate that's rapidly descending into an argument, and Buffy realises with a shock that his path puts him smack bang on a collision course with her hiding place. She steps back hastily, and the sleeve of her jacket catches on the protruding handle of the vase.

It seems to happen in slow motion, time warping and blurring around her.

The vase rocks unsteadily, flakes of gold catching the light. Once. Twice. Forward and back, slowly tipping the balance between upright and not. Buffy holds her breath for what seems like hours but is probably only seconds. It only takes seconds for things to come crashing down, after all.

This she knows.

There's a startled intake of breath, and the Watcher spins around with wide eyes as Buffy presses herself into the wall. She almost overbalances as it seems to give way beneath her, half-swallowing her arm – disappearing walls, that's something they must have added after she left – but his eyes skitter over her and then focus on the vase, and it seems so odd that everything is moving so slowly when it should already have –

Ancient porcelain loses the age-old battle with gravity and topples in a blur of forced momentum, shattering into tiny jagged pieces when it meets the unyielding surface of the floor. The crash is overlaid by the tinny ring of a cell phone, unfamiliar amid the heavy silence.

Blue and gold and white twinkle among the black stones, stretched out as far as Buffy can see. Stars in a fathomless sky. She wishes someone would answer their phone. Anything to direct their gaze somewhere that isn't in her direction.

Dawn snorts, then waves her hand at the youngest of the group. "Have someone clean that up," she says distantly, her eyes fixed on the corner, probing, searching. Apparently skipping right over Buffy's frozen figure.

The argument resumes after a beat, as if nothing ever happened. As if nothing was more important to Dawn than proving her point in the harshest possible way.

_Get out, and don't come back. _

There's a door set into the corner, and Buffy glances behind her at the group and then slips through it without hesitating. The phone stops ringing when she's on the other side of the heavy wooden shield.

She'll have to apologise to someone about the vase, if she can find someone who'll look at her long enough for her to choke out the words. It's all her fault, and yet in a way, it isn't.

If it wasn't placed on such a high pedestal, maybe it wouldn't have had so far to fall.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N**: _And so we've come to the final chapter. I feel all accomplished. *looks woefully at many other unfinished fics* I'll get right onto them, I promise..._

_Thanks to those who have been reading/reviewing so far. You really make my day._

* * *

The air outside is crisp with the oncoming chill of an English winter, an early frost forming on the blades of grass. It crunches under her feet, dangerously slippery and yet a little exciting – never knowing whether your next step will be a step closer to your destination, or leave you flat on your back, breathless and blinking at the sky.

Buffy walks carefully. She can't afford to fall.

There's a cluster of trees in the distance, some stripped bare by the fall winds, others maintaining an iron-fisted grip on their leaves. Her heart pounds heavily in her chest as she crosses last of the open space and steps into a clearing.

"Hey."

"I thought you'd come," Willow says quietly, like it wasn't a known fact but a game of chance. Roll the dice and see where you end up. Cut the cards. Raise the stakes.

Fold.

A patch of wildflowers bloom just beyond Willow's outstretched fingertips, petals turning hungrily toward the golden streams of light. Buffy's toes are frozen inside her boots, even as her palms sweat under the shield of heavy gloves.

Either Willow doesn't feel the cold, or she's learnt to focus on other things. Her friend's shoulders are bare, the flowing skirt tucked under her to provide protection from the grass. Her complete lack of protective outerwear makes Buffy shiver just looking at her.

"How can you stand it?" she asks, and Willow looks at her for a long moment. Neither of them are under any illusion that Buffy's talking about the weather.

She's not sure whether she'll be grateful for the lack of understanding or empty without it.

"I guess I can't imagine it any other way," Willow says. She pats the space beside her meaningfully. Steam rises between her fingers, curls, and disappears into thin air. Buffy sits on the ground, the earth warm beneath her thick cashmere coat. "When do you leave?"

"Soon," Buffy answers simply, mostly because the lump in her throat stops her from saying anything more. She can't read Willow's reaction from her position at her side – and isn't it funny, that the first time she feels _she'_s at Willows side rather than Willow being at _hers_ is when she's about to walk out of this place, possibly forever. Or maybe they've been side-by-side for a while now and she just didn't see it.

Willow doesn't ask if she's coming back. Maybe she doesn't need to. The alternative is something Buffy refuses to consider, because after all the fighting she's done today she doesn't need any more nails in her coffin.

They're already piercing her, rubbing her raw.

"If you want," Willow starts, then hesitates. "I could – I mean, not that I'm pressuring, 'cos I'm not so much with the forcing my hand anymore, and maybe you just want to be left alone, and that's really fine, but…"

Buffy smiles shakily. A cluster of tiny purple-blue flowers sprout in the grass near her right hip, sending her thoughts rushing back to illustrations in childhood books that have been long since discarded.

"Forget-me-nots," she says, reaching out to stroke a silken petal with gentle fingers. It shies away from her touch at first, before creeping back to push at her fingers, new blooms spreading out along the icy ground. If flowers could purr, she's pretty sure she'd be looking around for an invisible cat.

"Still working on my subtle," Willow replies with a tiny smile. "Should be done in, oh, a lifetime or so."

"You get major points for timing in my book," Buffy says, returning the smile with one of her own. "And yes," she offers after a moment, her eyes not moving from Willow's. "Keep me in the loop, okay?"

Because somewhere in the confines of the faraway building, Giles is still unconscious and hurting, and Dawn is finding her feet in the world they've created, and even though she can't be what they all want right now it doesn't mean she doesn't still care.

"You want me to tell – "

"No."

Willow doesn't push. Perhaps she senses Buffy's growing unease at her decision, her fear that she's making the wrong choice for not the first time in her life. Perhaps she can see a future that Buffy's unable to, stretched out before her in the infinite web of time and space and possibility.

Nevertheless, she doesn't push, and Buffy doesn't ask what it is that shades her gaze for a split second, storms roiling in her eyes before the clouds clear and Willow gathers her in a tight hug.

"So," Willow says brightly into her ear, "You want me to finally give in to Xander's pleas and turn Andrew into something slimy? I mean, something that's not a frog, because I'm still not a fan, but maybe a slug, or a wet noodle or something."

Buffy laughs despite herself. "Well, he does tend to leave a trail wherever he goes," she muses, grateful for the break in the melancholy. "But knowing Andrew, he'd still manage to find a way to annoy the everlasting hell out of all of you. Even if it's just by leaving slime in Xander's bed." She can feel Willow wrinkle her nose against her exposed skin at the thought. "Staying way the hell away from the double entendre of that one," she adds hastily, and Willow giggles.

The cold air on her exposed skin when they pull apart makes Buffy's face ache and her eyes sting. Or at least, that's her story and she's sticking to it. At least until she sees Willow's eyes blur and spill over, and then it's an effort not to break down.

"Is it overly corny to say I'm not going to say goodbye?" Buffy asks quietly.

"Eleven out of ten on the cheese scale," Willow says, scrubbing at her face with a sniffle. "But hey, I get it. Not so much with the Hallmark moments myself. And here I am, your weekly digest of all things Scooby, primed and ready to facilitate your being loopy."

"It's a good thing I learned to speak Willow early," Buffy muses. "Otherwise I'd probably be all offended that you might have just called me crazy."

Willow winks at her playfully. "_Might_ have?"

Their laughter makes the chill in the air a little more bearable somehow. In the distance a bell rings, the warning signal that afternoon classes are about to begin. Buffy sobers.

"That's my cue," she says slowly, pushing herself to her feet. "Time to blow this popsicle stand."

"Take care of yourself," Willow says quietly, then grins. "If I have to come bail you out again, I might have to start charging. And I'm not cheap, just so you know."

"I get myself trapped by a demon army _one lousy time_ and suddenly everyone's all Doubting Thomas," Buffy grouses good-naturedly. "Don't go commandeering any eighteen wheelers, now. I don't think I could take having my butt kicked by you a second time."

She pulls Willow in for one last hug before moving away and starting up the hill. There's no point in putting it off, because when it all comes down to it, this is something that she has to do. Might as well rip off the Band-Aid quickly.

"And hey, Buffy?"

"Willow?" So much for a speedy exit.

"I hope you, um, I hope you find what you're looking for."

Buffy sighs. "Me too, Wills. Me too."

*****

Unlike with the others, Buffy doesn't have to go searching for Willow.

Willow finds her, sitting alone in what used to be hers and Dawn's apartment. It's still furnished with Buffy's things, and only Buffy's things. She's curled on the squashy sofa that still remembers her curves, like it's been holding out all this time waiting for her. The matching chairs are missing and it makes the room emptier somehow, hollowed out in places, the bare space taunting her.

Dawn left all Buffy's stuff where it was and moved on as though none of it was even worth keeping.

In truth, Buffy doesn't even hear Willow approach, but she sure feels her. Her best friend hums with nervous energy. It rolls off her in waves that are almost tangible, the air warping a little around her. She's almost at the point of tears, or very close to it.

"Hey."

Guess word travels fast, especially when you've got some kind of innate connection to all the threads of the universe. Or whatever.

"Hey," she answers, on her feet and halfway across the room before she's finished the word. She stares at Willow, and Willow meets her gaze steadily.

"Buffy," Willow says slowly, rolling her name around like an unfamiliar taste on her tongue. As if she's savouring it, despite the bitterness that it looks like it leaves in her mouth. Her lips tremble and twist, then relax minutely into something that's almost a smile. "You're here."

"Like I could stay away forever," Buffy scoffs, her face aching from smiling so hard. There hasn't been a whole lot of connection going on lately, just odd conversations and lurking in the shadows like some kind of creepy stalker-type. It feels good to really look at someone, and to have them look back. Today has just been one long tickertape parade of weird.

"What can I say?" Willow says with a shrug. "I've been told I'm _very_ missable."

She looks as content as Buffy guesses you can look when an old friend pops by for a visit unannounced, even if her smile doesn't make it to her eyes. Her hair is somewhere between bright red and auburn. The deeper colour suits her, if only because it brings back vague hints of the days when their biggest problem was whatever monster decided to stir up the locals that week. And by 'stir up,' she means eat, or attempt to body-snatch, or interlock parts with to create little demon spawn. Or something.

Power rolls off Willow in waves, making the air around them hum.

"Are you – I mean, are you okay? Because you look pretty okay, but nobody really knows how these things work, with all the – " Willow chews on her lip. "I mean, you're happy, right?"

Buffy considers it briefly. "Happy as a four year old in a candy store," she says brightly, scuffing her toe along the floor with a satisfying scrape. Willow pauses for a moment, mutters something under her breath, and then bounds forward and wraps her arms around Buffy.

"Will, I need to breathe," she says, pulling out of Willow's eager hug. If it feels good to be looked at, it feels even better to be touched. Her skin tingles at the sudden lack of contact.

"Yeah."

But Willow doesn't sound convinced.

"So I've been thinking," Buffy says instead of dealing with whatever the hitch is in Willow's voice. "I mean, there's this empty apartment just sitting here, and someone kept all my stuff, so – "

"We use this place for visitors, sometimes," Willow interrupts, her expression changing. "And Dawn didn't want – I mean, she wanted to be closer to the cryptology lab, 'cos of all the super-sensitive… lithographs and stuff. Not because she didn't want to be here or anything. Besides, it was easier to keep the furniture than to get all new stuff. Busy busy, y'know."

She's almost blasé about it now, the words falling from her lips oh so casually. A near-complete about face from the careful way she chose them only minutes earlier. Or was it hours? Buffy can't quite tell, and there's just an empty space where the clock on the wall used to be. Dawn must have taken it with her when she left, even though the clock was technically Buffy's.

Maybe her little sister wanted a tangible reminder of all the minutes hours days without her. Or maybe she just liked the pattern on the clock face. Who knows.

Still, she can't shake the feeling that she's running out of time.

"I think I'm gonna come back," she says quickly, and Willow steps back like she's been shot. "Whoa, I didn't realise that was such a bad thing. I thought… well, I know stuff's happened, and from what I've seen everyone's still pretty angry, but I miss it, y'know? I miss _you_."

"Buffy – " Willow starts, then stops abruptly as though someone's hit the mute button off-screen. She bites her lip. "It'd be great to have you back." Her voice hitches.

"Hey," Buffy says in surprise. "Don't cry. I promise I won't try to make you 'sorry I bailed' cookies. Although you'd be surprised how fast your kitchen skills improve when there's nobody to bail you out. And I might've met a couple of really hot fireman in the process, so…"

"Did you find it?" Willow asks suddenly, grabbing Buffy's hands. Their fingers entwine so that Buffy can barely tell whether it's her hands or Willows' that are ice-cold.

"Say what?" Snippets of a long ago conversation float back slowly. "Oh."

Willow waits silently, clutching Buffy's fingers so tightly it hurts. It's hard to think when there's someone that close to your face, especially when it seems like forever since you had any kind of real contact with people. She's out of practice, oddly nervous and unsure of what to say.

"Maybe I had it all along."

Willow looks at her with bottomless, fathomless eyes, peering into her brain, examining every fibre and spark and idle thought that makes her tick. It's more than a little creepy, actually. Last time she looked at Buffy like that her eyes were pools of ink, burning black trails into Buffy's mind. But that was then.

Now, Willow's eyes are clear and calm and green, and she looks at Buffy as though she's memorising her face. Buffy has to resist the urge to search her skin, just in case.

"Okay, did I grow a wart or something? What's the what, Stare Bear?"

"Maybe I just missed you," Willow says.

"Like you can't work your mojo and see me anytime you want, like you guys watch over all the Slayers," Buffy says easily, knowing full well they've done it before and are probably still doing so. Things might change, but they'll always want to keep the girls safe. That's pretty much why they're here in the first place. Spare the girls, save the world. Or was it save the girls, spare the world? She can't remember. Too many thoughts right now – how quickly she can pack up, whether they'll let her come back at all, maybe painting the apartment a different colour.

Something bright and cheery and alive.

"Buffy?"

"Hrmghmm?" She clears her throat. "I mean, what's up?"

Willow looks pained. "I can't hold it," she says, and before she's finished speaking she seems to flicker like a TV on the blink. She grabs Buffy's hand and squeezes, but her touch is a mere whisper, like her hand melts right through Buffy's skin. Like she's not really there.

"Will," Buffy says, staring at their hands, "Maybe I missed a step, but what the hell kind of game are you playing here?" Suspicion blossoms like a shy spring bud. "Are you pulling some kind of magical sorta-teleporting thing? Are you really in Guam or Mississippi or somewhere?"

"It's not me that's got an elsewhere to be," Willow replies sadly, pulling Buffy into what should feel like the friend-hug to end all friend-hugs, but just tickles her skin. "I love you, you know that? And not in a gay-now kinda way, though if I'm honest maybe I had a little Buffy-crush before I knew what it really meant, but don't freak out because – " Willow stops herself. Her voice is getting quieter with each word. Vanishing before Buffy's eyes in more ways than one.

"Say hi for me," she adds, eyes locked on something behind Buffy.

"Willow, you're being – "

The world shimmers and fades out around Buffy before she can even finish the sentence.

* * *

It's too dark here.

She's always felt oddly safe in the dark, sometimes safer than she ever did in the light. After all, she does her best work at night, fighting things that emerge from the shadows, secure in her ability to fight back the monsters.

Kicking ass and taking names, and doing it with style.

But this is new.

It's not so much darkness as an absence of light, and that sends shivers up and down her spine, trailing like claw-tipped fingers. The balance between arching into the touch – channelling it, using it to fuel her – and shying away has never seemed so tenuous.

She can't see where the emptiness ends and the walls begin, and she's not alone. Eyes are glimmering in what she guesses is the corner of the room. They are neither kind nor unkind. They're just there. Staring.

Waiting.

The unknown thing-person-whatever shuffles its feet, soles scraping across the hard floor, and Buffy shudders at the sound.

"Who's there?"

Her voice echoes in the undefined space, repeating and distorting until she's not sure she recognises it anymore. Beads rattle. Someone lets out a breath that's more hiss than exhale.

"The Slayer does not walk in this world."

"You're right," Buffy says after a moment. "I don't." She breathes slowly amidst the rising panic, crashing into her like waves after an undersea earthquake. She would topple over against the force of the tide if her feet weren't stuck. "I don't walk in your world," she chokes out, her mind whirling. "We made our own, and I'm pretty happy with how it's going so far. Even if it's been a little on the weird side lately. And haven't we already deja'd this vu?"

Silence.

Gardenia perfume floats lazily on a breeze that drifts in without discernible origin or reason.

The same perfume her mother used to wear, a scent that saturates her memories as far back as she can clearly remember. Forehead kisses, a small hand enveloped in a large one, thumbs wiping away childish tears. All coated with the sweet flowery smell.

The same perfume that lingered on her hands for hours after she pulled them from her mother's chest. Ringing in her ears and only one heartbeat.

And then no heartbeat.

Her fingers are splayed on her own chest and there is nothing there. No beat beat beat beneath her trembling icy fingers, not even a flutter. Just emptiness and aching.

Tara steps out of the shadows.

It's then that she knows.

**

_She's in the near-empty room with Giles, only this time she's standing right next to him, close enough to see the display on the oft-ignored cell phone. _

Willow_; it reads, _One New Message.

Tell me it's not true,_ the text screams on the screen, but Giles isn't paying attention. His focus is on the crumpled object clutched in his trembling scarred hand. Buffy's not sure she wants to look closer, but she can't tear her eyes away._

_In the picture, the three of them are laughing at a joke that's so old she's forgotten what it was that made them smile. Red and gold and brown are tangled together as they pose, so close it's like they're drawing strength from one another. _

_Xander still has both his eyes. Willow's hair is a few shades closer to auburn than the red fire that came later. Buffy's smile lights up her whole face. Young and happy and strong, their faces glowing with the beauty of life._

_It could break your heart._

"_You can't stay here," he says, but he's not talking to Buffy. _

_He never was._

**

"You're wrong," she says desperately to Tara, and the witch-turned-ghost-turned-whatever smiles sadly, but doesn't respond. As if she's saving her words for what's to come. It seems the most important thing in the world to prove her point. A matter of life and death, even though she knows with cold clarity that her ending was written from the moment she stepped onto that plane.

"I wish I was," Tara says finally. She looks surprisingly content with her not-life-having for someone who only gets to watch from the sidelines. Maybe it gets easier with time.

Buffy doesn't want to think about having the time to find out.

"But I, I talked to Xander!" she says through a raw throat. "I didn't imagine that. I talked to him, and he talked back to me."

Tara doesn't move, doesn't blink, doesn't even breathe. "Did he?"

**

"_Do you ever see her?"_

_She needs to know the answer without knowing why she even asked the question._

"_Sometimes I'd like to think I do," Xander says quietly, looking away. "I talk to her sometimes, and it's almost like she's really there. Maybe I'm really talking to her. Maybe I'm not."_

**

She's not sure how long it's been between when the world lost focus and when she vagues back into whatever reality they're almost in, but she can't breathe, literally can't suck in enough air to keep herself going. Her chest heaves with the effort.

"Shh," Tara says quietly, her hand rubbing slow circles between Buffy's shoulder blades. She smiles without humour. "I'd tell you to breathe, but you don't need to."

A horrifying possibility hits her. "Did I get bitten?" She bites her lip so hard she tastes blood. It tastes like her own, but she has to know. "Did I… did I drink?"

"No."

Tara's face is kind and serene. Buffy wants to punch her to see if she bleeds, to see if she can't crack that horrible understanding look right down the middle with her closed useless fist. Because if she's being honest – and she really wishes she wasn't – she'd face her worst nightmare just to have a few more moments with them, even if her last minutes on earth were spent as a monster.

"_Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverum reverteris_," Tara says.

"Speak English!" Buffy demands, whirling away from Tara's touch like her skin's coated with kerosene and Tara just told her that her fingers are on fire. "I don't understand what you're saying. I don't – " Her not-breath catches in a sob. "I don't understand."

"They never do," a voice cuts in knowingly from behind Buffy. Forehead kisses and bedtime stories and the sweet scent of gardenia. Her mother steps out from the bottomless shadowy blackness.

Buffy's numb lips form the words, but nothing comes out.

"Sweetheart," Joyce says gently, "isn't this what you wanted?"

Once, yes. More than anything else. But not like this. _Never_ like this.

**

_This time when the doors swing closed, Buffy's already on the other side. Faith's leaning against the wall in the deserted hallway as if she wants to disappear into it. As if it's the only thing keeping her from falling._

"_You gotta tell the girls," she says, her voice raw-edged and thick. "They'll find out soon enough, and they deserve to hear the truth before someone else feeds them some bullshit about better places and peace and…" _

_Giles' voice crackles down the line. "The Slayers and Watchers on-site will be told in the morning," he says gently. "I have arranged for Kennedy to deal with the New Zealand situation in your place."_

_Faith bristles. "Screw that," she says bluntly. Buffy can't help but smile. "I need something to whale on. Ken can ride shotgun if she wants, but the biggest baddest motherfucker in that valley is all mine, you got that?" She coughs and swipes at her eyes angrily. "Goddammit, G. You know, just before I walked out of that gym, I thought I felt her in there, watching me. Telling me I did okay, y'know? And I ignored it. What if – "_

"_You're doing better than okay, Faith. What you've done for these girls – Buffy would be proud."_

_Faith straightens like a child receiving a pat on the head for a job well done._

"_Yeah," she says doubtfully, then shakes herself. "Right. Plane's a-waiting, and it's time to go find something to kill. Hard and fast and dirty. Just the way we like it." _

**

"They'll be okay, right?" Buffy asks, her eyes fixed on her mother's face. "Mom?"

She sounds like she's five, begging her mother to tell her that her new goldfish will still be alive in the morning if she closes her eyes. Just like she did back then, Joyce gathers her in a hug that's so familiar and comforting Buffy doesn't know how she'd ever forgotten what it felt like.

"The end of one journey is the beginning of another," Joyce whispers into her hair oh-so-gently, then pulls back and studies her, smoothing away the stray tears with the pads of her thumbs. "Your friends will be okay, Buffy. It will be hard, and they'll think of you often, but they'll make it through."

"Can I – "

"You can't," Tara says. "We're not allowed to interfere. You can watch, if you like, but – " Her chin quivers and she pauses to collect her thoughts. "It won't help anyone."

Buffy wonders if it's possible for one's brain to short circuit from too much unbelievable information at once. Because it wasn't like this the first time, or the second – the first was a moment of clarity between faltering heartbeats and Xander's hot breath, and the second was unimaginable pain followed by peace unlike anything she'd ever felt before.

This is like… like someone digging around in her skull, exposing an unwanted reality with a hot metal skewer that liquefies her brain wherever it goes. Leaving only heartache and gaping holes in its wake.

She can't breathe amongst the stabbing.

"And – and Willow, she was – I touched her, and she was all corporeal and soft and Willow-like and - "

**

_Willow sits in a circle of candles, cross-legged and cowed. The skin around her eyes is shiny and faintly pink, stripped clean like a field after a raging flood. Bare in the way that makes you itch when you look at it. _

_Her cell phone lies abandoned on the floor, still open as if she bailed out mid-call._

_Buffy's never been good with languages, and apparently being dead doesn't give you some all-powerful guide to knowing everything in the universe, because she can't understand the words Willow's whispering brokenly into the circle of light._

_Tara touches Buffy's arm, and the faint buzz of electricity makes her jump. "She's asking for permission to shift the barriers," she explains, "To allow you and her to exist in the same space when the laws of metaphysics would otherwise prevent it." Buffy watches Willow's eyes carefully, expecting them to blacken, but they remain clear and green even as her face twists with determination. "She's asking for a chance to say goodbye."_

_Buffy stares at Tara uncomprehendingly. "She found me," she says slowly. "Why didn't she – I mean, did she ever – "_

_Tara maintains that same sick-sad smile, her fingers flexing like she wishes she could grasp red hair and stroke it in that way she used to during research sessions when they thought nobody was watching._

"_She's learnt a lot in the last few years. And this time, someone decided to make the impossible possible." Jealousy is an expression Buffy's never seen on Tara's placid face, and even the faintest hint of it looks odd, an ill-fitting skin of green-tinged envy. The other girl sighs. "It was the only way to make her believe it. But as powerful as she is, she couldn't hold the illusion long enough."_

"_Will she – " She can't finish the thought, but apparently she doesn't have to._

"_No," Tara assures her, turning away from the sight before them as Willow's hair begins to bleed white through the red. "It was granted. It wasn't taken. There's a difference."_

"_But I'm still dead," Buffy whispers, and Tara drops her gaze. _

"_Yes."_

_Willow disappears, and the candles extinguish as one, and then there's nothing._

****

"It's almost time," Joyce says to Tara, glancing at her wrist.

"You don't even have a watch," Buffy points out bitterly, clenching her fists at the absurdity of her not-life turning out like some kind of surrealist play. "What are we waiting for, that Godot guy? The meaning of life?"

"'We give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams for an instant, then it's night once more'," Tara quotes absently, her eyes fixed on the wall clock. "Your mom's right. It's almost time."

Buffy follows her line of sight and blinks. The hands are missing.

"That clock's broken. What's the point of looking at it?"

"Some habits are hard to break," her mother explains.

"What about life?" Buffy asks, her voice cracking. "Is that hard to break?"

"Surprisingly easy," Joyce replies sadly, touching Buffy's cheek. "Despite our best intentions." Hot tears spill over Buffy's eyelashes and fall, gravity claiming them with greedy fingers.

"So how does it work?"

Tara steps closer as the world starts to blur around them. Buffy scrabbles for her footing and then stiffens as she's enveloped in warmth on either side. Hot breath brushes across her ear, an answer blown from lungs that don't need to exhale.

"Just close your eyes."

* * *

"A toast," Giles says triumphantly, his filled glass raised high. "To paving your own path, in spite of objections and obligations and archaic rules."

The bright lights of the ballroom catch the movement of the bubbles within and shatter, sending streams of pale gold into the air. Reflecting and refracting from one point of focus and then many, as Watchers, Slayers and support personnel alike rise from their chairs and add their glasses to mark the sentiment. Buffy can't remember the last time she's seen Giles look so content, so _sure_.

"To friendships and to family," he continues, looking directly at her before taking a deep breath and looking out at the crowd of jubilant faces, hesitating like he's loathe to bring bad news. "To the fallen, who will live on in our hearts and in the legacies that we are recording day by day, and to those who we love – and those who come after – for whom we continue to fight."

The room is weighted with a collective holding of breath.

Giles smiles and lifts his glass higher as though he wants to share the moment with the heavens. Buffy's eyes threaten to betray her and spill hot tears down her cheeks. "To the International Coalition of Watchers and Slayers," he says proudly, catching each of their eye – Willow, Xander, Faith, Dawn and finally Buffy herself – in turn before drinking deeply from the glass. Light plays across his face in ripples of gold and white.

His eyes never leave hers, even as the room swells first with murmured approval and then gathering applause. Willow sniffles beside her softly and Buffy reaches blindly for her friend's hand.

"Hot damn, G," Faith says appreciatively, "If I'd known you were gonna get all Hallmark on us, I would have brought tissues."

"Well hey, if it's comfortador-ing you're after," Xander offers with a half teasing, half hopeful grin, "I'd be happy to offer my services. Or, y'know, nothing takes your mind off the melancholy like a lap dance."

"That what they said at the Fabulous Ladies Night Club?"

"Never got any complaints," Xander replies, and Buffy very nearly spits out her mouthful of champagne at the horrified look that crosses his face. "Any chance we could turn back time to a point where I could _not_ say that out loud? Willow? Help me out here, ol' buddy ol' pal…"

"No power on this Earth," Willow says between giggles. "The image of you channelling Demi is way too fun to not be imagining." They all wince at that and Buffy raises a sceptical eyebrow in Dawn's direction before she can stop herself.

"_You've_ seen Striptease?"

Faith snorts, and Dawn just stares at Buffy like she's grown an extra head. "I realise that in your head I'm, like, eternally seven, but_ seriously_? The Disney Channel has more sexual connotations than that movie."

"Yeah, but Hannah Montana never got her tits out to pay for her studio time," Faith offers. Giles looks like he's about to turn tail and head for the nearest adult table. "Harris, if you so much as think about ragging on my tv-watching habits, you'll want to eunuch yourself with that butter knife before I do it for you." She glares at him before throwing up her hands. "Oh what the hell. It's a party, and I'm not in a castrating kinda mood. Rag away."

"Ladies and Gentlemen, with the help of a blonde wig and her trusty stake-slash-microphone, I give you Faith the Vampire Slayer, lip-synching like a champ to 'Nobody's Perfect'."

Faith rolls her eyes. "Ain't that the truth. And you wanna know what else I can do with my mouth, all you gotta do is…" Xander leans forward eagerly, clearly not hearing the warning horn of the train of fail that's headed his way at warp speed. "…watch me teach the baby Slayers how to use the blow-gun next week."

Even Giles barks out a laugh at the expression on Xander's face.

Buffy drinks it all in like warm spring air after a chilly winter, basks in the laughter that ripples across their happy faces like shy sunshine. She can't imagine a better feeling than right now, lost in the moment, standing on the edge of all that's past and all that's yet to come.

The future stretches out before them like a rainbow made solid, the endless web of possibilities glittering under their eager feet.

* * *

_Sorry if I surprised/confused anyone. I couldn't figure out a way to warn without giving the game away. But you like to be kept guessing... right? Right? *hopeful look*_

_I'd love to hear what you thought... Pretty please?_


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